Westmoreland Conservation District
Promoting CLEAN STREAMS…STABLE SOILS…HEALTHY FORESTS…PRODUCTIVE FARMS…and SUSTAINABLE COMMUNITIES throughout Westmoreland County, PA
For 62 years, the Westmoreland Conservation District has been successfully encouraging loggers, earthmovers, developers, farmers, and others whose daily work directly affects our natural resources to voluntarily incorporate conservation practices in their projects, and so protect the quality of the soil, forests, and streams.
The District’s ability to elicit this voluntary care of our natural resources is extremely high, because its approach is personal, often one-on-one, and because the actions it recommends are both proven and practical.
Mission
The Westmoreland Conservation District promotes, educates, and implements conservation principles through examples and programs.
We encourage best management practices and voluntary compliance of laws. Our Board of Directors, professionals, and volunteers are committed to the leadership and service required in pursuing a better environment. We use our skills and talents, and the cooperation of our partners, to build a culture of responsible stewardship and sustainability.
History
The Westmoreland Conservation District was established in 1949, when local farmers, seeking help to conserve their soil and water resources, approached the Westmoreland County Commissioners.
As Westmoreland County has grown and changed in the 62 years since that founding, the District has responded with new programs to help ensure minimal impact on all aspects of the county’s natural wealth – its soils, forests, streams, and open space – as well as its valuable, productive farmland.
During the 1950s and 1960s, the District first expanded its efforts to include the broader-based issues of flood prevention, an inventory of county soils, anti-litter campaigns, and land-use planning.
When the 1970s brought increased urbanization to Westmoreland County, the District added programs to control sediment and manage stormwater. It is one of the few districts in the state to have a hydraulic engineer (PE) on staff.
In the 1980s and 1990s, the District undertook efforts to reduce non-point-source pollution, protect groundwater, manage solid waste, beautify highways, and provide quality recreation areas.
Since 2000, the District has focused many of its energies on education and outreach. It established a formal conservation education program, targeted to upper-level students and adults, and created a number of citizens advisory committees to help ensure that the District’s programs and services are relevant to the public’s needs.
The organization also moved into its own building next door to its former location (Donohoe Center). This new location – an 1880s-era barn constructed with conservation technologies, recycled materials, and water-saving landscape practices – not only serves as the District’s headquarters, but also as a practical demonstration of conservation-in-action.
Currently, the organization is working to complete GreenForge, the first green rehabilitation of a commercial building in Westmoreland County. Located between Donohoe Center and the District’s barn, GreenForge is being used to promote sustainable development and to provide low-cost office space for grassroots conservation, agricultural, and rural development organizations.
Looking Ahead
In the past few years, the District has been receiving requests from area citizens to expand our conservation information into two new areas — green building and energy conservation — and we have cautiously taken the first small steps toward providing assistance in those areas.
In 2010, we partnered with Westmoreland County Commissioners and the Industrial Development Corporation to host four, free energy-education workshops, each tailored to the needs of a particular audience: area schools, businesses, nonprofit organizations, and municipalities. All of the seminars were well-received and attended.
We also have created a major web presence on these topics (see XXXX).
Also looking ahead, the District sees that the onset of drilling for Marcellus Shale natural gas in western Pennsylvania presents an opportunity for our organization to encourage the same kind of voluntary conservation practices in this industry as it does in agriculture, forestry, and others…and to help achieve a balance between the need to extract this natural resource and the need to limit the impact of that extraction on other natural resources.
The Westmoreland Conservation District is located in an historic, 1880′s bank barn that has been adapted with a variety of energy-saving and conservation materials.
